swirl

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English swyrl (“whirlpool, eddy”), first recorded in Scots,^[2][3][4][5] and its source is uncertain.^[4][6][7] The OED thinks that, unless it was formed independently by onomatopoeia, it is probably related to dialectal Norwegian svirla, Dutch zwirrelen (“to whirl”) and dialectal German schwirrlen (“to totter”), which have the form of frequentatives of the stem in Danish svirre, dialectal Swedish svirra (“to whirl”) and schwirren (“to whiz, whir, chirp”).^[4] The Shorter Oxford, the Oxford Dictionary of English and Collins prefer a Dutch or Low German source, comparing the Dutch verb,^{[8][5][9][10]} while the American Heritage Dictionary allows Low German or Scandinavian,^[3] and Dictionary.com takes it from Scandinavian, cognate with the Dutch verb.^[11] Skeat, Weekley and Partridge derived it from the Norwegian verb, a frequentative of sverra (“to whirl”).^[12][13][14] Hoad sees a frequentative of the imitative base of Middle Low German swirren and the German and Danish verbs,^[15] and Klein and the Merriam-Webster Unabridged call the word imitative.^[16][7] Etymonline takes the verb either from a continental Germanic source or from the noun.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

An eddy or whirlpool: about 1425, in Andrew of Wyntoun's Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland.^[4][2] The verb appears once before 1398,^[2][6] and then from 1513, in Douglas's translation of the Aeneid, meaning to whirl or brandish something.^[4][2]

Semantic evolution

The word was originally Scots,^[4][5][6] and the English Dialect Dictionary records it a century ago from Scotland and Ireland through the northern counties to Northamptonshire, East Anglia, Hampshire, Somerset and Devon, in forms such as swurl, swarl and Somerset zwurl;^[17] West Yorkshire had swirl-hole for a bend in a stream where the water is deep.^[17] The sense "a twist or curl", of hair or the grain of wood, is recorded from Burns in 1786,^[4][6] and the intransitive verb, of water moving in eddies, from 1755.^[4][6] The general sense of a whirling motion is first recorded in 1818, in Keats^[4] or, according to Barnhart, in Scott's The Bride of Lammermoor;^[2] the same year Hogg used the verb of a head swimming with dizziness.^[4] Later uses include the swirl given to the mixture in an engine's cylinder (1926) and a fairground ride (1962).^[4][6]

Timeline

• c. 1425 – an eddy, a whirlpool, in Wyntoun.^[4][2]
• 1513 – verb, to whirl or brandish, in Douglas.^[4][2]
• 1755 – verb, of water, to move in eddies.^[4][6]
• 1786 – a twist or curl, in Burns.^[4][6]
• 1818 – a whirling motion.^[4][6][2]
• 1818 – verb, of the head, to swim, in Hogg.^[4]
• 1858 – verb, of other things, to move rapidly in eddies, in Kingsley.^[4]
• 1926 – in engineering, a circular motion of the mixture entering a cylinder.^[4]
• 1962 – a fairground ride.^[4][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A whirling mass or motion, as of water, air or dust; an eddy or vortex.^[7][9][4]
2. A spiral shape or mark, such as a curl of hair or a whorl in the grain of wood: a swirl of cream on the soup.^[7][9][4]
3. An act of swirling something: He gave the coffee a swirl.^[7][9]
4. A state of whirling confusion.^[7][9]

Verb

1. To move with a whirling or eddying motion: Leaves swirled across the yard.^[7][9][4]
2. To make something move in this way.^[7][9][4]
3. Of the head, to feel dizzy.^[9][4]

Word family

• swirly
• swirlingly
• aswirl

Related words

• whirl
• swarm

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e f g h Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
14. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
15. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
16. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
17. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)